How to include required appcompat libs after react-native upgrade?

Question

I've updated to react-native 0.59.9 in order to support 64bit APK creation - https://medium.com/@andriidrozdov/reactnative-and-android-64-bit-new-google-play-market-rules-what-to-do-584b067d6f1a:

 "react": "16.8.3",
 "react-native": "0.59.9",

But after running the app with react-native run-android it throws a build exception:

A problem occurred configuring project ':app'.
> Could not resolve all dependencies for configuration ':app:_debugApkCopy'.
   > Could not find com.android.support:appcompat-v7:28.0.0.
     Searched in the following locations:
         file:/C:/Users/brian-varley/AppData/Local/Android/Sdk/extras/android/m2repository/com/android/support/appcompat-v7/28.0.0/appcompat-v7-28.0.0.pom

When I search the give path for appcompat-v7-28.0.0. I see that 28.0.0 is missing and the latest I version I have is 26.0.0-alpha1. There is a similar question here but the answers didn't resolve the missing appcompat lib in this react-native project: Failed to resolve: com.android.support:appcompat-v7:28.0

Question:

How can I install a missing appcompat-v7 library in a react-native project?

These are my app and project level build.gralde files showing the dependencies and repositories defined.

Project level build.gradle:

// Top-level build file where you can add configuration options common to all sub-projects/modules.

buildscript {
    repositories {
        jcenter()
    }
    dependencies {
        classpath 'com.android.tools.build:gradle:2.2.3'

        // NOTE: Do not place your application dependencies here; they belong
        // in the individual module build.gradle files
    }
}

allprojects {
    repositories {
        mavenLocal()
        jcenter()
        maven {
            // All of React Native (JS, Obj-C sources, Android binaries) is installed from npm
            url "$rootDir/../node_modules/react-native/android"
        }
    }
}

App level build.gradle:

apply plugin: "com.android.application"

import com.android.build.OutputFile


def enableSeparateBuildPerCPUArchitecture = false

/**
 * Run Proguard to shrink the Java bytecode in release builds.
 */
def enableProguardInReleaseBuilds = false

android {
    compileSdkVersion 28
    buildToolsVersion "28.0.1"

    defaultConfig {
        applicationId "com.simple-offset-pro"
        minSdkVersion 16
        targetSdkVersion 22
        versionCode 1
        versionName "1.0"
        ndk {
            abiFilters "armeabi-v7a", "x86", "x86_64"
        }
    }
    splits {
        abi {
            reset()
            enable enableSeparateBuildPerCPUArchitecture
            universalApk false  // If true, also generate a universal APK
            include "armeabi-v7a", "x86", "x86_64"
        }
    }
    buildTypes {
        release {
            minifyEnabled enableProguardInReleaseBuilds
            proguardFiles getDefaultProguardFile("proguard-android.txt"), "proguard-rules.pro"
        }
    }
    // applicationVariants are e.g. debug, release
    applicationVariants.all { variant ->
        variant.outputs.each { output ->
            // For each separate APK per architecture, set a unique version code as described here:
            // http://tools.android.com/tech-docs/new-build-system/user-guide/apk-splits
            def versionCodes = ["armeabi-v7a":1, "x86":2, "x86_64":3]
            def abi = output.getFilter(OutputFile.ABI)
            if (abi != null) {  // null for the universal-debug, universal-release variants
                output.versionCodeOverride =
                        versionCodes.get(abi) * 1048576 + defaultConfig.versionCode
            }
        }
    }
}

dependencies {
    compile fileTree(dir: "libs", include: ["*.jar"])
    compile "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:28.0.0"
    compile "com.facebook.react:react-native:+"  // From node_modules
}

// Run this once to be able to run the application with BUCK
// puts all compile dependencies into folder libs for BUCK to use
task copyDownloadableDepsToLibs(type: Copy) {
    from configurations.compile
    into 'libs'
}

Answer 1

Compile is not recommended by Android. Use implementation or API.

And add to manage dependencies.

android{
      ...
configurations.all {
    resolutionStrategy.force "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:28.0.0"
   }
}
...
dependencies {
    implementation fileTree(dir: "libs", include: ["*.jar"])
    implementation "com.android.support:appcompat-v7:28.0.0"
    implementation "com.facebook.react:react-native:+"  // From node_modules
}